Luke... I am your Father!... in cake form

My step son turned 9 last week and has been telling me he wants a Star Wars themed cake since I can remember. In an effort to pull through on that promise, I tried to make a Darth Vader helmet. Turns out, that's a hard thing to do! Darth is made out of rice crispies and covered in marshmallow fondant. The dimensions of his face are hard to see because of the lighting and because he was really dark in the first place (get it, he was dark... the dark side... get it? Sorry, that was my feeble attempt at a Star Wars joke. In the words of my best friend, Rosie... I don't get it.)

Anywho, the cake to the right is a lemon cake layered with buttercream and the stars, logo, and light sabers are made out of marshmallow fondant. My brother emailed me to say that technically speaking, one of the light sabers should have been red for some nerdy Star Wars reason.... haha. So I apologize for the inaccuracies of this cake in the realm of Star Wars :) Hyrum loved the cake and the first things that went were the marshmallow light sabers. Yummy! Thank you for checking it out!

Shoutout to my apprentice

My apprentice, Alex, made a cake for her dad's birthday last week. He loves to golf and bike (is it called biking? I just never know about those darn active sports things :) This was completely her design, completely her work, and I have to say, I'm SO impressed with her skills. That golf bag there is REALLY impressive, especially with the details and the golf clubs coming out of the top. The balls around the top tier also say, "Titleist" (I hope I spelled that right). All of the decorations are made out of homemade marshmallow fondant and the creative genius of Alex's brain. It was a spice cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream. Great job, Alex!!

Christmas Present Cake

I had a work party this morning and decided to make a cake at the last minute. I found the inspiration from a cake I saw on Cake Central (my favorite website addiction). The cake was a Mom's Apple Pie Cake and all of the decorations are handmade from homemade marshmallow fondant. The presents are fondant and the "snow" is buttercream covered in crystallized sugar.

My friend brought his two daughters to the party (ages 3 and 5, I think). They ate all three of the main characters and loved it! I kept telling my friend that I was sorry because that was going to be two little kids on a giant sugar high. Ah, it was fun to watch. :)

Treasure Chest Cake

Summer needed a huge cake for her huge luau party (around 400 guests!) for her son's 1st birthday. The party was a pirate themed extravaganza with a kiddie "walk the plank" and pirate costumes and decor everywhere. I knew I had to make something awesome when Summer asked me to recreate a pirate treasure chest that she'd seen online. Although she didn't want it to feed all of the guests, she wanted it to be a nice centerpiece. Here's what we came up with. This cake was a foot long, over 8 inches wide, over a foot tall, and super heavy! The picture doesn't do the size any justice.

The cake was a chocolate cake layered with buttercream and chocolate chips. Because the base was so tall, I made two separate layers of cake stacked on top of itself. Now for the nitty gritty... if you're not interested on how to make cakes, no need to read on :)

The top lid of the cake was made out of rice krispies and covered in marshmallow fondant. In order to keep the lid opened, I put in support under the lid and then skewered it into the cake till it was steady. The whole cake is covered and decorated with MMF. I first colored the the fondant brown and then let is sit till it dried. I "scratched" the dried fondant with a knife and made sure to leave nicks and different lines. Once that dried, I painted on layers of brown food coloring making sure to dye some areas darker than others until I thought it looked like wood. Then, I took the hardened fondant and simply adhered it to the side of the cake that was covered in buttercream. This gives the cake a pretty crisp edge.

The corners of the chest were painted with gold food coloring. The pearl necklace, "gold coins" and sword are all fondant. The green and red gems are peanut M&Ms and the yellow gems are both reeses pieces and fondant. The silver nuggets are tootsie rolls and dove chocolates covered in tin foil and the sand on the bottom is crushed graham crackers.

Hmm, I think that's about it :) It was SOOOOO MUCH FUN to make this cake. Summer was amazing to work with because she basically said, "here's kind of what I'm looking for but do whatever you think is best." I tried to make it look as "pirate treasure chest" as possible and really just loved every second of making this. I wasn't able to be there when Summer came to pick up the cake but she called me immediately after picking up the cake. She kept screaming (in a good way) and just told me how much she loved it. I wish I could've made it to the party to see the amazingness of a 1-year-old-Pirate-themed-Hawaiian-Luau :) Maybe next year, right?